"When are you going to debate the senator?" someone asked Sen. Strom
Thurmond at the recent Ruby Parade. The most senior senator launched into
a diatribe about how that young fellow running against him just wants
publicity and everyone knows his positions.

Then one of the senator's handlers whispered in his ear that the
person asking the question was Elliott Close.

If you are worried that the senator may be losing his grip, take
comfort in the fact that he has managed quite well without it for some
time. Men in dark suits have been whispering in Strom's ear for at least
30 years.

A former Thurmond staffer recalls that in the early 1970s "Strom never
went to an event without several people whispering in his ear. That's
Hootie Johnson; his bank gave us $25,000 last year. That's Mrs. Jones from
Aiken, her mother used to cook bar-b-que for you"

"I was with the senator in the mid 1970s, when he was one of the lead
negotiators in a missile treaty with the Soviet Union," the staffer
recently confided. "For a week, the size of a certain missile was compared
to a Volkswagon Beetle. I gave him a ride home one night
 this was during the height of the gas shortage
 and he pointed out a VW bug and asked, What kind of car is that?
It looks like it would be good on gas."

While the senator's remaining brain cells may be atrophied, he never
misses an opportunity to show off his physical prowess.

"I got to give him his props (respect)," said Jeremy Martin, a senior
at Strom Thurmond High School in Edgefield. "He came to the weight room
two years ago (at the age of 92) and did more push-ups than one of the
football players," Martin said.

DEMOCRATIC TOKENISM AWARD

When the Palmetto Project, a Charleston based group that considers
itself progressive, launched its biannual voter registration drive last
month, one of its corporate sponsors prompted rolling eyes and clucking
tongues.

Laidlaw Inc., a Canadian firm which operates one of the nation's
largest toxic dumps in Sumter County, made a $2,000 contribution to the
Palmetto Project's goal of enhancing participatory democracy in South
Carolina by sponsoring voter registration drives. (Only about a third of
eligible voters in South Carolina bothered to go to the polls in the last
election.)

The irony of Laidlaw sponsoring a voter registration drive is that the
corporation has the dubious distinction of being the state's top lobbyist
last year, spending nearly a half-million dollars to insure that the toxic
waste industry has more influence over legislators than you do.

TOXIC INFLUENCE

One of Laidlaw's top lobbyists last year
 they had five
 was Tom Mullikin. Mullikin, a Camden-based contract lobbyist, was
paid $37,500 by Laidlaw in the first nine months of 1995.

During that same time, Mullikin took an additional $30,000 from
Industrial Waste Management Association. Other hazardous waste-related
lobbying brought in an additional $40,055.

Mullikin has retired from his lucrative lobbying business to run for
the state Senate seat presently held by Don Holland (D-Kershaw).

Since the salary of a state senator is only $10,000, one can only
assume that Mullikin is being driven by a tremendous sense of public
service.

Two months before the election, Mullikin had reported $3,100 in
campaign contributions from waste-related industries whose interests he
used to represent as a lobbyist.

Why lobby senators when you can be one?

DEAD WRONG

Last March, POINT brought you the story about a security
guard who choked a shoplifter to death as customers urged him to stop. We
reported that Ricky Coleman had outstanding warrants for impersonating a
security guard and pointing a firearm when he killed Douglas Fischer.

A Greenville police lieutenant was quoted in the story as saying,
"(Coleman's) idea of security was shooting the customers."

We asked Best Buy why they would hire a known goon with outstanding
warrants for a security position. The store's spokesman responded that
Best Buy had checked Coleman's criminal record and it had checked out
clean.

On Oct. 10, Coleman plead guilty to the charges that were outstanding
when Best Buy hired him. He was given a one-year sentence, suspended
pending the successful service of 18 months' probation.

Coleman is still working at Best Buy.

THE PRICE OF FAME

Former Mt. Pleasant dentist Jim Edwards recently became the 55th
nominee for the South Carolina Hall of Fame. The Hall was created to honor
people who have contributed to South Carolina's heritage and progress.

Edwards served as governor from 1974 to 1978. His most notable
accomplishment was getting elected.

He went on to serve as secretary of the Department of Energy, where
his only qualification was being fanatically pro-nuclear. He is best
remembered for his failed promise to dismantle the entire department.

Edwards currently serves as president of the Medical University of
South Carolina, where he will be long remembered as the man who sold the
University hospital to a private corp-oration.

Edwards is well known in nuclear waste circles for his dedicated
service on the board of directors of Waste Management Inc., the world's
largest toxic garbage company and owner of the Chem-Nuclear radioactive
waste dump in Barnwell.

Edwards will surely be remembered by generations of future taxpayers
for his enduring contributions to our state's glowing heritage.

ISN'T THAT A SIN?

There may be some truth to the rumor that the Greenville County
Council has declared "habitating for humanity" a sin.

The council's resolution condemning homosexuals as incompatible with
community standards cost the county the Olympic torch. The resolution is
still causing repercussions.

A poll commissioned by the Greenville Business Magazine
indicated that 70 percent of Greenville County voters "believe that the
government should not enact resolutions on moral issues."

Only 16 percent felt that the anti-gay resolution would have a
positive effect on local businesses.

When a Seattle, Wa., church cancelled its plans to help the Greenville
Habitat for Humanity build homes, it issued a statement warning: "Basic
human rights such as employment, housing and public accommodations are
under assault in the name of family values. As a congregation of
justice-seeking Christians, we feel we must take a stand in condemning the
actions of the Council."

ProJustice Carolina, a group that was formed to rescind the
resolution, includes some of the very people that the council deemed unfit
to live in Greenville.

In a move that underlined the council's hypocrisy, the members of
ProJustice turned out to help build the Habitat houses, and invited the
council members who passed the offending resolution to join them.

Council member Scott Case said, "No way."

Councilman Mark Kingsbury said, "I support Habitat, but I will not be
caught dead with you."

By not showing up, the council drove another nail into its own coffin.

WILL THE REAL CHRISTIANS PLEASE STAND UP?

Since the Christian Coalition began its takeover of Greenville County
politics in 1992, it has purported to represent the conservative,
Republican majority.

The Christian Coalition has painted itself into an ever-shrinking
corner by asserting that everyone who opposes its narrow brand of
fundamentalism is a "liberal." But the Coalition, which has blurred the
line between church and state, has alarmed a growing number of people.

They worry about things like the fact that the Greenville County
School Board Chair, Joe Dill, had a message on his answering machine that
said he is out "fighting the downtown Greenville money-lovers,
children-haters and devil-worshipers."

A new group has been formed in opposition. Parents and Taxpayers for
Better Greenville Schools includes Liberty Corporation CEO Hayne Hipp,
Sheriff Johnny Mack Brown, Furman University President David Shi, former
Mayor William Workman and a host of other Greenville notables, hardly the
liberal philistines the Coalition brands its opposition.

Unlike the Christian Coalition, the group is not coy about its
political activities, and has formed a political action committee to allow
it to endorse candidates.

Hipp's group has mailed out two glossy brochures to Greenville County
voters. The cutline under unflattering photos of the Coalition leaders on
the school board says they voted to deny teachers a 2 percent pay raise
and then voted to more than double their own salaries.

"They decided that putting more money in their pockets was more
important than putting money in the classrooms," the brochure claims.

It then asks voters to ask themselves whether the board members did
the right thing, before they go out on Election Day.

MORE LIKE A SNACK

Democrats recently announced the Party's "Dinner Table Agenda,"
presenting it as a kinder, gentler alternative to the Republican's
"Palmetto Promise." The Agenda is so named because, according to a press
release, "it addresses issues South Carolina families discuss every night
around the dinner table."

The "first course" of the Agenda serves up education, and deals with
such topics as all-day kindergarten, and alternative schools for children
with behavioral problems. So far, so good.

But the suggestion that cops be authorized to pick up any kid they see
on the street during school hours may cause some civil libertarians
indigestion.

The part we really thought hard to stomach, though, was the suggestion
that parents be given one hour a month leave from work to "tutor or assist
in our schools."

Let's see
 20 minutes to get there, 10 minutes to park and find the class, 20
minutes to get back to work... that leaves 10 minutes to "strengthen the
bond between parents and schools.